


Unexpected Words

by Bonfoi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 2010, Angst, Community: lupin_snape, Drama, Letters to Lupin Challenge, M/M, Romance, Snupin Showers Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonfoi/pseuds/Bonfoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy Lupin finds a letter filled with despair and enlightenment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Words

**Author's Note:**

> There are words we wish unsaid. But there are people we want to hear those selfsame words.

**Challenge:** Snupin Showers Celebration and Letters to Lupin 2010  
 **A/N:** This is not my usual fare. I had called it a “Dark!Fic” but removed the warning because…well, I don’t think it applies, but tell me if it strikes the reader as such.

* * *

 ** _ Disclaimer:_** The world of Harry Potter, its characters and settings are the copyrighted works of J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., her publishing companies and affiliates. No profit was made from the writing of this story nor was any malice intended in any way, shape or form to the author or the actors/actresses who so brilliantly have brought them to life. 

This author is not responsible for underage readers. Please observe the ratings, warnings, and age of legal consent for your country.

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They found the roll of parchment stuffed behind some texts on funerary rites of the Fifteenth Century Goblins. It was much creased and there were bald spots where some words had been blasted off the parchment’s surface. The fact that it belonged to Severus Snape but was found in Remus Lupin’s library—unWarded, unHexed and unprotected—came as the biggest surprise.

> Lupin,
> 
> I can well imagine your surprise at receiving this missive. I too am surprised that I had the wherewithal to set quill to parchment and write it. 
> 
> It can come as no surprise that I am aware that I will not survive this war. I have been part of machinations dire and redemptive, but I have nothing pure to live for. You are the only now who truly knew me—before Black and Potter’s abortive attempts upon my life, before I ruined my friendship with Lily…hell, before I prostrated myself at the feet of the Dark Lord. I know of no one else that will note my passing with anything other than disdain and distaste.
> 
> Do not let them carve my name upon a cenotaph nor grant me an Order of Merlin, whatever the class. I have done nothing to earn accolades or honors. I have spied, killed, conspired and hated. I am nothing if not ignoble.
> 
> I am a misanthropic, obsessive being—I see myself clearly, for all my faults are obvious—and realized years ago that I had burned any bridges that led to true forgiveness and acceptance. I do **detest** Potter’s whelp—he is part of the reason I never was forgiven. I have and will always hate Sirius Black ~~damn his furry hide!~~ for breathing, for interfering, for denying me a chance.
> 
> You are beyond my grasp now, Lupin. I made certain of that. I want you to live finally. Each action that pushed you away pushed you toward your eventual marriage and mating to Nymphadora. The fact that you two created a whelp is disturbing…and yet, it is reassuring. There will be another Lupin for me to envy, but there will be no Black to deny me a place in **their** life’s history nor cast **their** young life into shadow.
> 
> Yes, I have been at the Firewhisky, even the damned swill known as Gin. I am as someone would say **Shnockered**. This is the only way I would… ~~tear myself open for your amusement~~ lay my soul bare. I will **not** go to my death unshriven and unburdened. If I am worthy of anything it is tears, and yours are the only ones that matter now.
> 
> I welcome Death and all it holds for me. I will truly be at peace, but it will of my own doing finally. There will be no Dumbledore, no Voldemort, no thrice damned Potter or Black to hold me back anymore. Perhaps, I will even see my mother…
> 
> Damn you to the Eighth Level of Hell*, Lupin… **Remus!** I planned on leaving only instructions, not pleas and hopes. A man such as I should have no hopes, no dreams to lose now as Death and its minions claw at my portals, at my very soul. Yet, thoughts of you are a bright flame, consuming my last desperate hours! Oh, how the mighty are fallen, eh? Black would relish my incoherent rambling as madness brought on by wicked intent and malformed magic, wouldn’t he?
> 
> How did you slip beneath my skin, you damned…you strange creature of Dark and Light? I could pull out my hair if I had a hope that you would meet me on the other side in fifty or sixty years! What is it about you that always, always, always drew my eyes, made me curious beyond sense? **How dare you make me weep for you?**
> 
> I started this missive with the intent of only making myself a memory and yet, here I sit, in this dank, musty room in the Dungeons, writing what seems to have become a…a love letter! See what you’ve done to me, even in your absence, in your detestation! I am undone!
> 
> I once desired Lily Evan—oh, not as a body but as my one and only friend, mine alone. I once even desired Sirius Black—until he opened his mouth and hate spewed forth. Then, time passed and I realized I had not yearned, lusted, until you. Once again, Black intervened. Time ~~pashed~~ passed and you once again came into my ~~spere~~ sphere and I grew to…desire your time if not your body once more. And yet again, bloody Black ~~may he burn in Hell~~ was there to foil my wishes. Yet, you had wormed your way inside, deeper than Lily, deeper than my boiling hate for Black, deeper still than my aversion to such emotions. I felt love for you. I still feel love for you. I learned, you see, that beneath it all, you were worthy, even if you were different.
> 
> See, I cannot love without a cutting edge. Yet, it is thoughts of you—not Dumbledore—that have stayed my hand when rage has overtaken me. It is thoughts of what your face would look like if I gave free rein to my inner demons’ urgings to maim, to tear, to destroy all around me.
> 
> As I look back over this meandering, maudlin bit of writing, I find myself both sobered and bemused. For once in my life, I will trust to nothing but chance and send this. It will be my gift to my forlorn hope.
> 
> Keep yourself safe, Lupin! Protect your family as you have one now. I have deemed you worthy of all this and damned if I want Potter’s Whelp or his compatriots seeing my puerile ramblings!
> 
> SS

Teddy Lupin looked at the scroll as it lay in a spiral on the table. His finger never stopped rubbing over the shaky but stylized _SS_ at the bottom.

“He always was a damned hard man, wasn’t he?” Scorpius Malfoy asked. He sat across from his friend…well, his boyfriend, and laid his own fingers on Teddy’s hand, halting the rubbing motion. “Dad and Potter go on and on about how brave and how mean he was.”

“Mean?” Teddy looked at Scorpius. “You think a mean man wrote this?” he asked in a thin voice. “You can be a prat and a damned fool sometimes, Scorpius.”

Scorpius reared back at the vehemence in Teddy’s voice. “But, you said…”

“What he said was that you can be a prat, much like your father and your grandfather!” Severus stepped through the door with Moony at his side. “And how my son can stomach your close-minded beliefs that Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter are the arbiters of my history is beyond me.” Moony leaned against his legs, pushing at Severus’ stride and making him stumble. Severus knew he’d been reproached by his mate, but it was not in him to let a Malfoy off scot-free—especially when that Malfoy was involved with his son.

“Yes, yes, Moony.” Severus pushed his fingers through Moony’s ruff and scratched at his neck, soothing both their feelings somewhat. “Malfoy, I would suggest you leave our home for the time being. And, if I hear one word of what that letter said circulating, I will Obliviate you to your Third Year, am I understood?”

Scorpius jumped up from his chair, barely avoiding tipping it over as he scarpered toward the cottage door. “Yeh-yes, sir! I won’t…no…Slytherin’s Honor!” At Severus’ raised eyebrows, Scorpius gulped. “Uh, on my love for Teddy, sir! That’s honest and good! Teddy’s love, sir!” The young Malfoy backed his way out of the Lupin-Snape cottage avowing his fervent desire to forget what Teddy had read him.

Moony slowly nudged the door closed behind his son’s beau. His tongue was hanging out, a sure sign he was laughing in his wolfish way. Once Severus Warded the door once more, he went and sat at his son’s side and put his furry chin on the boy’s thigh.

“Dad…Father…” Teddy looked down into his dad’s eyes, trying to find an answer to whatever question he couldn’t voice. Then he looked up at Severus, his gaze just as searching as Severus’ when he practiced Legilimency. Teddy licked his lips and spoke. “You were writing a suicide note, weren’t you, Father?”

Severus twirled his heavy cloak off his shoulders and sent it to the hall closet with a flick of his wand. He set the tea kettle to boiling and Summoned the tea things to the table and then sat across from Teddy.

“I suppose I did. As you can see, it degenerated into admonitions to your father to keep himself alive.” Severus held an empty tea cup between his hands. He glanced down into it as if looking for words and then flicked his eyes up to Teddy’s. “It was the best I could do before going off to get myself killed.”

Moony growled and nudged Teddy’s hand up to the table. Teddy got the idea and put his hand across the table to stop his father’s play with the tea cup. “Father…why did you leave it for me to find?”

Severus had stopped fiddling with the tea cup as Teddy’s fingers pressed on his. “We knew you were curious about our history. You had heard and read everything Granger-Weasley had written, and those interviews that Potter gave. But you never asked me about it.” Severus seemed to pale as he spoke in a low voice, “I wanted you to know that I have always been harsh and stern. It is who I am.”

Teddy got up and went around the table to hug Severus. Moony _woofed_ as his two special men held each other.

“I just wish Scorpius hadn’t been with me, Father. You know he’ll say something soon.” Teddy might love Scorpius Malfoy but he knew just how much the letter’s contents were pressing against his boyfriend’s teeth, fighting to get out.

Smirking at his son’s expression, Severus allowed himself a snort. “That boy is more transparent than his father ever was! The instant he opens his mouth to speak of this, it will disappear until he comes here and atones.” Severus looked from Moony to Teddy, hoping that it wasn’t too harsh of a punishment for his family to accept.

Teddy laughed and Moony fell to the floor to roll in lupine glee. Severus laughed outright at that.

Leaning on his father’s shoulder, Teddy’s laughter dwindled away slowly. “Father, he’s also going to turn Slytherin Green! I guess great minds truly do think alike.” Severus gave him a one-armed hug as they laughed again.

“Thank you both for trusting me with this letter,” Teddy said a few moments later. “I’m going to hide it away and when you’re both old and crotchety, I’ll read it to you as inspiration to get you out of your rocking chairs.” Teddy leaned down and pressed a kiss to his father’s cheek and then knelt down for Moony’s enthusiastic face-licking. “I wouldn’t have you any other way, Father. I know you love me and Dad. That’s all that matters.”

Severus looked at his son and his lover and vowed they would never have cause to doubt his love. It had taken coming within a razor’s breadth to Death and his determination to wrestle the best from his unexpected future to get them into his life….

“Yes, it is all that matters,” Severus said as he shared a warm glance with Moony.

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_~~~ Comments, like rain in the desert, are greatly appreciated.  
Thank you for reading. ~~~_

**Author's Note:**

> *[Descriptions of Dante’s Inferno ~ Level 8 - the Malebolge](http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-information.html)
> 
> Many and varied sinners suffer eternally in the multi-leveled Malebolge, an ampitheatre-shaped pit of despair Wholly of stone and of an iron colour: Those guilty of fraudulence and malice; the seducers and pimps, who are whipped by horned demons; the hypocrites, who struggle to walk in lead-lined cloaks; the barraters, who are ducked in boiling pitch by demons known as the Malebranche. The simonists, wedged into stone holes, and whose feet are licked by flames, kick and writhe desperately. The magicians, diviners, fortune tellers, and panderers are all here, as are the thieves. Some wallow in human excrement. Serpents writhe and wrap around men, sometimes fusing into each other. Bodies are torn apart. When you arrive, you will want to put your hands over your ears because of the lamentations of the sinners here, who are afflicted with scabs like leprosy, and lay sick on the ground, furiously scratching their skin off with their nails. Indeed, justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.


End file.
